Pot, Meet Kettle

A brief comment and link in a DailyKos open thread today pointed to China's official response to The Regime's recent, annual State Department report on global human rights ("2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices").

China was, presumably correctly, chided on human rights abuses; and China has now, equally correctly, chided the Regime back. (See ABC news story here; the Sydney [Australia] Morning Herald story; the People's Daily Online [China] story; and the full English language version of the Chinese government's reply.)

The State Department said, according to ABC:

the Chinese government's human rights record "remained poor, and the government continued to commit numerous and serious abuses." And that repression worsened in China in 2005, with a trend toward "increased harassment, detention, and imprisonment" of people seen as threats to the Chinese government. It also mentioned tightened controls over print, broadcast and electronic media and censorship of online content.

Oh, dear, "harrassment, detention and imprisonment". Maybe they'd like to sublet space at Gitmo? Maybe we could send them some CIA or military advisers from Abu Ghraib? We could show them how to do these and still be a beacon of liberty.

Well, the Chinese certainly don't need our help in (hypocritically) criticizing others. Their well-documented response details US problems outlined under the following categories:

I. On Life and Security of Person (violent crime)
II. On Infringements upon Human Rights by Law Enforcement and Judicial Organs (NSA spying and US prison population)
III. On Political Rights and Freedom (costs of elections, lobbyist abuse, press manipulation)
IV. On Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (poverty, income gap, workers' rights, lack of affordable healthcare)
V. On Racial Discrimination (self-explanatory)
VI. On Rights of Women and Children (poverty, spousal & child abuse)
VII. On the United States' Violation of Human Rights in Other Countries (self-explanatory)

And the final paragraphs of the Chinese report state:

The facts listed above show a poor human rights record of the United States, which forms not only a sharp contrast with its image of a self-claimed "advocate of human rights," but also disaccord with its level of economic and social development and international status. The U.S. government ought to first clean up its own record of human rights before qualifying itself to comment on human rights situations in other countries, let alone arrogantly telling them what to do.

To respect for and protect human rights is a necessity and indicator of human civilization, and to promote human rights is the common responsibility of all countries and a major theme of international cooperation. No country in the world can claim to have a perfect state of human rights, nor can any country stay outside the course of human rights development. The issue of human rights should become a theme of social development in all countries and of international cooperation, rather than a slogan for exporting ideologies or even a tool of diplomacy to fix others out of one's own political needs.

For years, the U.S. government has ignored and deliberately concealed serious violations of human rights in its own country for fear of criticism. Yet it has issued annual reports making unwarranted charges on human rights practices of other countries, an act that fully exposes its hypocrisy and double standard on human rights issues, which has naturally met with strong resistance and opposition from other countries. We urge the U.S. government to look squarely at its own human rights problems, reflect what it has done in the human rights field and take concrete measures to improve its own human rights status. The U.S. government should stop provoking international confrontation on the issue of human rights, and make a fresh start to contribute more to international human rights cooperation and to the healthy development of international human rights cause.

There is no need to decide whose society is more or less abusive. I suppose that the State Department is as close to right here as it ever gets. The issue is the sheer hypocrisy of Our Regime and, for that matter, of Theirs. Both sides get it when it comes to human rights. Neither side gets it. As for me, I'd rather that we first try to take these issues seriously domestically first. Leaving the adage of the title for another one, "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones".

A Theo-Political Ramble
A lot of the US self-consciousness that leads to the Sate Department's country reports is still shaped by or at least reflects the colonial perspective of the Puritan governor, John Winthrop who, citing the Prez's "favorite philosopher" preached the following in 1630,

For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken ... we shall be made a story and a by-word throughout the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God ... We shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us til we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.

There are two "cities on a hill" in the Bible: one is an idealistic allusion to Jerusalem, the Holy City; the other is an Realpolitik-al allusion to imperial Rome, AKA "the whore of Babylon" in the book of Revelation (pardon the sexist image). Placing yourself on the hill, and using Any Means Necessary to maintain that place does not resolve the issue of what kind of city you are. The book of Revelation was written during the century of the Pax Romana, but from the perspective of subject citizens who saw and experienced the oppression by which that faux pax (pardon the fran-latin) was maintained. And the subjects saw that Rome was therefore doomed, despite its legions and its roads.

If I held the belief that God acts in history with retribution (as many in the Religious Right do, I think), then I would think that the best form of Homeland Security would be a "liberal" domestic policy and budget. The Regime knows the values language of rights and "care for the vulnerable", but it somehow has no clue or doesn't care to have a clue about what they might really mean as a guide to action. The God they too easily and conveniently espouse has historically not been impressed by empty words and duplicitous action.